Album reviews: Recent & Recommended for October

Friday

Oct 27, 2017 at 10:16 AMOct 27, 2017 at 10:16 AM

Peter Chianca / pchianca@wickedlocal.com More Content Now

Matt York, “Between the Bars”

Put Boston’s Matt York in the “should be rich and famous department” -- his country rock with a jangly edge has instantaneous appeal, combining wry lyrics about barflies, ex-lovers and fading summers with infectious melodies and a rocker’s penchant for strumming his way through heartbreak. Though his latest is tight at six tracks, York still manages to squeeze in guitar rave-ups (“All Over the Town”), Stonesy blues chuggers (“Honkytonk Hangover”), mariachi-tinged reminiscences (“When The War Began”) and even a spooky surf lament (“Calling for You”).

“Started out with breakfast at a bar,” is how he kicks off “When The War Began,” and that tells you everything you need to know about York’s shaggy protagonists, who are clearly more comfortable at a honky tonk than at home. (The “bars” in the album title aren’t in a prison.) With York’s lived-in croon punctuated by gruff harmonies, moody horns and ‘60s-style organ flourishes, every track paints a vivid aural picture that puts you right next to him in those bars at closing time. (Note: This album best taken with whiskey.)Susan Cattaneo, “The Hammer & The Heart”

Ah, the record album. You may not remember what that was, but Susan Cattaneo does -- and the Nashville-by-way-of-Jersey country songstress has doubled down on the concept with her latest, an ambitious, self-produced double album that’s awash in down-home tales of rising above adversity (“The River Always Wins”), love both good and bad (“When Love Goes Right,” “Bitter Moon”), and, on the raucous “In The Groove,” “the beat, beat, beat of your vinyl heart.”

Cattaneo has assembled an impressive roster of guests for this collection, but it’s her own rich vocals, in turns wry and wrenching, that really stand out. That’s especially apparent on “Work Hard Love Harder,” which gets both the rocker and ballad treatments (one on each disc), and is an instant country classic in both styles. Cattaneo’s lyrics can be black as night, as on the desolate duet “Dry” with Dennis Brennan (“Words are like water, and this well’s gone dry”), but it’s her scorching take on sly tracks like “Ten Kinds of Trouble” that really make this one a keeper.

The first disc (“The Hammer”) is the stronger of the two, but good for Cattaneo for daring to test our ever-shrinking attention spans: She definitely succeeds. David Corley, “Zero Moon”

David Corley has gone darker since his 2014 debut “Available Light” -- almost dying of a heart attack on stage, which happened to Corley in the Netherlands in 2015, will do that to you. But that’s not to say “Zero Moon” is some somber meditation on death. Rather, in many ways it’s a celebration of getting back up again when you’re down, even as you traipse forward through the “outrageous howling hell of a night,” as Corley croaks on the chugging standout track “Desert Mission.”

Corley’s vocals remain a gnarly, spoken-sung wonder on his new disc, paired perfectly with evocative blues-rock and Americana arrangements to sound at times like Tom Waits fronting The Band. On the plaintive rocker “Whirl,” he confronts mortality head on: “While I’m alive I just whirl and hope that the wind don’t die,” he sings. “Just in case, you know who to notify -- my next of kin.” And on the exquisite “A Lifetime of Mornings,” Corley channels Waits, Lou Reed and recent, “archaic” Bob Dylan for something entirely his own, lamenting “We’re sliding through doorways; suddenly, you’re just not here.” A moody masterpiece.

“Zero Moon” will be released in the U.S. Nov. 18.Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, “Lotta Sea Lice”

Barnett is the Australian singer-songwriter whose clever conversational lyrics have drawn Dylan comparisons, and Vile the lo-fi indie rocker and one-time The War on Drugs guitarist whose own wry songwriting has drawn a devoted following of its own. Together, they’re a match made in hipster heaven on their new collaborative album. The pair’s voices meld as perfectly as their laid-back worldview in a terrific collection of songs about making music, sustaining relationships and millennial ennui.

They prove a winning pair on duets like the standout “Continental Breakfast,” in which they trade verses about cherishing “intercontinental friendships” over the titular meal, and also get to shine individually: Vile on tracks like the country-tinged “Blue Cheese,” and Barnett with her take on Vile’s own sleepy lament of longing, “Peeping Tomboy.” The latest in a long line of super-duos (She & Him and The Both come to mind), Courtney and Kurt seem by far the least pretentious -- and most lovable.

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